Vow
by lrhaboggle
Summary: June was just trying to acclimate to Hell when an old familiar face appeared. It was Cora! Had the girl come to save her and take her home? Or was Cora here for a darker reason?


Doll limped through the Devil's Carnival. She'd been here for about a month, but she was still recovering from the injuries the Translators had inflicted upon her. As of right now, she was practicing on her walking. Given how many injuries her legs sustained, it was a miracle they were functioning at all. Every step still hurt, but she was getting better at it and stumbling less.

Several minutes into this little practice session, Doll thought she saw somebody moving in the distance. She squinted her heterochromia eyes and stalked forward slowly and unsteadily. Finally, the stranger's face came into view and Doll felt her heart explode in her chest. Cora Stein! Yes! Surely it was! Doll would recognize that face anywhere! It was her old best friend Cora! She'd come at last! Just as June had hoped ever since her arrival to this awful place! Doll tried to cry out to her friend, but her voice was still weak from the beating and screaming. Instead, she limp-ran towards the girl with eyes glittering with happy tears. For the first time in a month, she felt hopeful and happy. She felt like the girl she once was. She felt like June Freeman again. When Doll got an arm's length away from Cora, she finally forced out her friend's name.

"Cora!" she cried, voice raspy and cracking like the scar that ran down the right side of her face. Cora whipped around and let out a shriek of fear. Doll was slightly offended, but she understood Cora's fear. She held up her arms in surrender. "Cora!" she repeated her friend's name in hopes that Cora would remember that there was only one carnie who could possibly know her name. But Cora continued to freak out.

"Stay back, you freak!" she cried, throwing an empty tin can she found on the ground. Doll felt it whizz by her head.

"June!" Doll cried feebly, voice failing her. She pointed frantically to herself in hopes that Cora would finally recognize her.

"Me! Friend! June! Cora!" she cried, sounding like a braying donkey.

She repeated these lines until Cora finally calmed down. She seemed to finally see that Doll meant no harm. Instead, she looked severely confused. But Doll was too happy to see that Cora was calming down to care. Despite her agonized throat, millions of questions swarmed her brain. _How and why are you here? Are you ok? Is anybody with you? Were you sent or did you choose to come? Can you save me? Or are you trapped? How have you been? And the others? Did you miss me? Does anybody else miss me? Am I allowed back? Are you bringing me home?_

"Cora…" that was all Doll could say despite the millions of questions in her mind. She opened her arms to receive her old friend, taking another shaky step towards her with a hopeful, albeit crooked, grin. Cora, however, backed up fearfully.

"No. You stay away from me, you monster!" she snarled, glaring warily at Doll. Now Doll was hurt. Cora recognized her, so what was with the cruelty? This wasn't all her fault. And if Cora wasn't here to be friendly, why was she here at all? It was clear from Cora's unscathed appearance that she'd come of her own free will. But why? Before Doll could even express her confusion, Cora turned and ran. Doll went limping after.

"Wait! Where you go?" Doll managed to say as she limped after her friend, confusion and hurt swirling in her brain.

When Doll finally found Cora again, Cora was with Scorpion. Doll flinched. Scorpion was friendly enough with her, but he was terribly flirty and Doll knew that he punished sinners who were too trustful or lustful. Normally, this didn't bother Doll too much, but she couldn't let Cora get hurt by Scorpion, even if Cora seemed to hate her. Doll snuck up on the pair and when she was in Scorpion's sightline, she gestured to him.

"I'll be right back," Doll heard Scorpion tell Cora before sliding to her side.

"Hey Doll!" he said. "What's up?" he leaned back casually. Doll had no time for this. Instead, she pointed at Cora and shook her head.

"You don't want me to hurt her?" Scorpion frowned, trying to interpret her gestures. She nodded. "Whose orders?" he asked next. Doll pointed to herself. This evoked a cruel laugh from Scorpion. "By what authority?" he asked. "I'm just doing my job, Doll. I mean, if you're into her, you can help, but I can't just not punish her, Doll. It's my job, don't you see? Unless you want to take it up with Lucifer…" Scorpion trailed off with a wicked grin. He was trying to scare Doll but she was already too worked up to care. Instead, she tried to sign to him that she and Cora were friends. At last, the message finally got through.

"But how?" Scorpion asked, sounding genuinely surprised. "She only died a few hours ago!" he added. What? That caught Doll off guard. Cora may have arrived here in Hell a few hours ago, but she died years ago, with Doll, in that bus crash. Doll tilted her head and Scorpion raised his right hand. "I know I'm not an honest guy but I swear to you on my best knife that this chick only died like two hours ago. This is only my second time through with her!" he pleaded, but Doll shook her head. There had to be a mistake. She signed to him, asking how he knew when this girl died.

"As you get more used to Hell, you'll find you can sense sinners and their stories," Scorpion explained. "And I can sense that this girl got shot in a robbery just a few hours ago," he added. Doll shook her head in disbelief, but then she crouched down to write in the dirt. _Name?_ "Lyndon," Scorpion replied. Doll's face fell. She knew Scorpion was a chronic liar but there was something in his voice that was not being faked. Doll knew in her heart that this time, Scorpion wasn't playing a game. This girl was honestly named Lyndon and she had in fact been shot down and killed just a few hours ago. There was no lying right here and now.

Doll stood there, shaking as she processed this horrible truth. Scorpion grew uncomfortable, sensing that she was about to go berserk.

"Look Doll, I've gotta get back to work," he said. "But I'll distract her and keep her here for a bit so you can see her better," he added before sliding back over to where Lyndon was still waiting for him. He hadn't even bothered to get Doll's answer on whether or not she wanted to do this but Doll limped dumbly over to the pair anyway. She angled herself until she could see better and she realized that Scorpion really was right.

Cora had short brown hair, bright blue eyes, was a bit shorter than a normal girl, had a sweet yet stern face, and wore the average applicant uniform. This girl, Lyndon, had slightly darker and longer hair with darker eyes and she seemed more entitled and hotheaded than Cora ever had and her outfit didn't fit the applicant uniforms and she was actually a bit taller than Doll. The physical appearance between Cora and Lyndon, though close, were off enough for Doll to see that this girl was Lyndon and not Cora. But this would also explain her earlier confusion and her disgust at Doll's appearance even after Doll managed to give her name.

So it was true. This wasn't Cora. Doll wasn't going to be saved. Doll felt her heart break all over again and she fell to her knees miserably, unaware of when Scorpion finally led Cora, no, Lyndon away. Pain and fury rose up in Doll's heart until she felt it and her head spin. She looked to Heaven slowly before letting out a cry despairing enough to be that of a sinner and angry enough to be that of a demon. It was just like the scream she uttered when she first arrived in Hell. Doll had finally, truly broken. The realization that her friend really wasn't ever going to come save her finally sunk in and the realization that she was stuck here for good without a hope of seeing her old home again stung like a knife. She began to scream and cry pitifully and finally she was only a ball of broken misery lying in the dirt.

But Doll couldn't wallow in self-pity forever. Instead, she finally forced herself up and limped to the main tent of the Devil's Carnival. She entered in to see Lyndon's corpse bound to a knife wheel with a knife protruding from her chest. Doll approached the girl with a mix of emotions. Lyndon still looked so much like Cora that seeing her corpse hurt Doll, but at the same time Doll still felt a twisted sense of justice at seeing her enemy paying for her sins. She treaded about the girl curiously, fairest wheels turning madly. Finally it all made sense. This girl was not Cora, thus everything that happened to her was deserved. She did not deserve Doll's pity.

Yet Cora also deserved suffering and just because she was still in Heaven didn't mean she deserved to be there. Even though Lyndon was not Cora, Cora deserved the same fate and neither one of them deserved Doll's pity. Doll remembered that, while being thrown from Heaven, Cora had cried for her but didn't do a thing to help Doll. No, Cora deserved Hell for her cowardice and disloyalty to the girl she claimed to love. It didn't matter how hard Cora had cried for her, Cora never did a damn thing to actually save her… Slowly but surely, Doll began to convince herself Cora never really loved her at all and that she was just as guilty as snobby Lyndon. No, it had all been an elaborate trap set by God to kick her out. It might've worked, but now Doll made a vow for revenge. A vow to kill God, Agent, and Cora.

As this vow was made, fury and scorn took control of Doll. Then she made a second vow. She would never be June again. Gone was her sense of humanity, pity, compassion and kindness. All those traits were weaknesses down here and Doll was casting them off just as she had cast off Heaven and all those who lived there, even Cora and Agent. From now on, only Doll would remain, only a heartless and merciless demon incapable of pity would remain! Doll suddenly mounted the knife wheel, tore the knife from Lyndon's chest, and began to strike the girl's corpse repeatedly just to vent. She hit the girl's corpse over and over again with Scorpion's knife.

Several mins later, she was finished using Lyndon's corpse as a punching bag and she put the knife in her dress to return to Scorpion later. She looked at Lyndon's lacerated body and smirked. She also pressed a passionate kiss to the dead girl's lips as another way to seal the vow of vengeance and hatred. She smirked again as she pulled away, leaving bite marks on Lyndon's perfect lips. With that, she exited the big top tent and let the undertaker carnies carry Lyndon away to be brought back for later usage. Doll was looking for Scorpion. Once upon a time she despised him and his job, but now she was desperate to be his partner and practice the art of killing so that when the day of revenge came, Doll might be ready. No, not might. _Would_. She would be ready and that was a vow!

 **AN: I just imagine that Doll, at least once, would've hallucinated being saved or she would've held out the hope that somebody would bring her back to Heaven. This is just me writing that theory out and it was semi-based off of the line "Truce, truce, let's make a vow!". On that note, too, I couldn't think of a good name for Cora's clone here, so I just used the actresses name but I had no intention of implying that she deserved this fate. I think Lyndon is awesome. Doll's just gone a bit loony at this point, but who can blame her? Nobody is coming to take her home, of course she'd be mad.**


End file.
